Italian town centres have changed with the times, but Martin Buckley, who is in Reggio Emilia in the north, says that while many small shops have closed down, the neighbourhood food shop continues to prosper.

Italians are looking for quality not quantity when it comes to shopping

Crossing the piazza I notice a new delicatessen, its windows offering local parmesan, parmigiano reggiano, aged for 36 months at 12 euros a kilo.

Then I recognise the proprietor, Silva. She used to run a small delicatessen in a back street, which I came back from our summer holidays to find closed down.

But here she is again, in larger, brighter, premises.

I ask for a kilo of parmigiano and Silva takes half an enormous wheel of cheese and begins to cut me a slice.

They have skilled, strong hands, workers in parmesan shops.

Silva has to make a groove in the rind, then keep forcing the short-bladed parmesan knife deep into the brittle cheese, levering off, without snapping, a long slice, that goes from the rind right to the heart of the wheel.

So, it takes a few minutes to select and buy a piece of parmeggiano, and I, for one, am happy, to take the time to watch.

Personal service

Silva buys her parmigiano directly from the dairy, so she even manages to keep her prices 25% cheaper than the supermarket and her quality is better, too.

More than half of Italian food sales are still in traditional delicatessens. And one of the joys of living in an Italian town is the array of small shops that flourish.

In nearby Bologna, whole alleys have been taken over exclusively by fruit shops, or butchers. I can tell which street I am in just from the smell.

Loisa, who runs a fruiterer's, tells me she still knows almost all her customers by name.

Many Italian shopkeepers own their leases, keeping outgoings low. And there are more shops here than in any other western European country.

The number of independent corner shops in the UK has declined

According to one estimate, there are three times as many as in England - almost 500,000 retail outlets, one shop per 120 people.

A London think-tank concluded recently that European governments should eliminate protection for small shops and accelerate planning permissions for hypermarkets.

This, it said, would favour the consumer, and make European retailing more competitive.

No mention was made of the quality of life in small, historic European towns, which are still substantially residential, or of the sense of security it gives you to walk home at night, not through deserted streets, but among fellow human beings who are busily buying the ingredients for their evening meal from shops that are open until 8pm.

Locals 'dying off'

As Silva sliced my parmesan, I asked her how she thought small shops here in Reggio Emilia were doing.

"Well, clothing retailers have the life cycle of the mayfly, they open and close every five minutes," she told me.

"But us food shops, we keep going, because people want quality, and they know that from us, they are gonna get it."

Nevertheless, since we arrived in this town two years ago we have seen many shops close.

Shoe shops, hardware stores, drapers have gone, and it is a nationwide trend.

Piera and Aldo Gibertoni run a small grocery almost invisibly located on a side street.